Shion no Ou – 13

Oh, how I love this series. Thankfully, it’s got no intention at all to stop with just one season, and this seems to be heading into a fully fledged 24-episode series. Obviously, I couldn’t be happier, because the first half of the series already was amazing, and the second half promises to be even better.

Like expected, you’ll never know how long a match in this series can take. The episode has only been going forward for one minute and it was already clear that all three of Saori, Ayumi and Shion lost their respective matches. And yet again Shion surprises me with her amazingly strong character. Satoru gets to win in the end, but instead of getting the satisfaction of seeing her sad and crying, she just smiles to the guy. To make matters worse, this turns out to be something that Satoru didn’t take into account, and we see the first hints of background for the guy! It seems that a girl he met during his times in high-school, called Kazumi, is a major reason for how he turned out like this.

I also liked how the guy messed up Shion’s shoelaces when he left. We never see him actually do it, but signs point everywhere that he was the one behind that little immature act. And you just have to love how Ayumi offered Shion to use his shoes, which turned out to be incredibly huge for a girl. ^^;

Anyway, it turns out that there still is a chance for Shion, Ayumi and Saori to make it to the finals, though they have to keep winning. Shion and Ayumi succeed, but Saori ends up against another old shougi-master, and she loses. Her role in this anime is far from over, though, when Satoru uses Hani-meijin’s cell-phone to make Saori find out about Ayumi. I’m not sure what he was hoping for, but this definitely is an interesting way to toy with his opponents.